Rebel has been finding, fighting for cause

If maverick Henry David Thoreau talked of hearing a “different drummer” of dissent, Gordon Siu listens to a marching band.

Many people have nerve endings sensitive to the winds of social injustice. But Gordon sandpapered his so he can detect the slightest breeze.

Recently, he used a gift card at a restaurant, and when he asked for a refund of the leftover change, he was refused. Whoa! The law says he’s entitled to his refund, and he was off and running on another cause. He went on TV and stated his case. Naturally, he was right, which is what he has a history of being.

As he said, “It wasn’t about the few dollars I had coming back, but the millions of dollars consumers are cheated out of on these gift cards.”

The 26-year-old Yale University grad and Marine Corps reservist is ever alert for tiger tails to twist. However, though he does it with a whimsical sense of humor, his purpose is serious as he attempts to fight unfairness while he watches hot air escape from the balloons he pricks.

He doesn’t seem to be partisan: miscreants of both right and left are in danger of his gaze and broom.

Gordon got an early start as a Lone Ranger of grievance, and has never stopped.

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For three years a decade ago, a favorite sport at Chula Vista’s Bonita Vista High School was watching student-journalist Gordon Siu freak out district administrators.

He got his muckraking start in 2004 as a sophomore staffer on the school paper, The Crusader. (“Muckraker” is not a pretty word, but it’s an honored journalism name for those who dig up dirt in the public interest.)

Gordon approached faculty adviser Nancy Clifford, saying he wanted to do an exposé on the leaders of their own Sweetwater Union High School District. Now, this is what a school paper adviser needs, right? A kid who can’t yet drive a car wanting to go all Watergate on her bosses. Well, Clifford, to her everlasting credit, did not send him off to interview the homecoming queen. Rather, she told him to go ahead — with watchful editing, of course.

“She thought it was hilarious,” Gordon says. “She said to go for it.”

“The students and teachers supported Gordon,” says Clifford, now retired. “He had a wicked wit. He’s definitely brash. He’s not burdened by seeking to be hugged. I admired him and was fond of him. Gordon was far and away the best investigative reporter I ever had.”

Over the next three years, district bigwigs must have seen Gordon around every hallway turn, especially Superintendent Ed Brand, with Gordon asking for records of every suspicious lunch the poor guy bought. Because he had the support of Bonita Vistans, efforts from on high to stifle him went nowhere.

Gordon was among the first to challenge the administration of the Sweetwater district, a political slough out of which prosecutors would later catch fish like an Alabama bass pond. Gordon showed that, even as a kid, he could sniff out a bad odor better than reporters who get paid to do it.